Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt quite literally preserved a future for their children by fighting for world peace. And yet it’s hard not to judge them for the fact that their five children would be married an astounding nineteen times! One suspects that FDR bears the majority of the blame for this. He broke his wife’s heart with his affairs. He could be imperious and condescending. He had been spoiled by his own doting mother. Nor was Eleanor blameless. She was so busy. She stuffed her resentments and her anger down. She often pretended everything was perfect when, of course, it wasn’t. They were also distant cousins, which was more normal at the time . . . but still pretty weird! How could their kids know what a good marriage was like? They had ringside seats to a complicated power marriage between two people who often put just about everything else ahead of their happiness (or duties) as spouses . . . and parents.
The point here is not to judge the Roosevelt marriage nor to insist that you must stay in your current one. It’s to remind you: Your kids learn about everything important from you. Including relationships. So what are you teaching them with yours? What are they seeing that you might be blind to? You have to show them what a good marriage looks like. You have to embody what healthy connections and equal partnerships look like, because the example you set will be their first and the most indelible.